Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali says that the team will come first as the Italian outfit tries to manage the interests of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

“It was a rational choice, based on the need to have an expert driver pairing,” said Domenicali. “With the one aim of it doing well for Ferrari. I hope the track will show that it was the right choice. How will we manage them? Decisions are always carefully considered, but they always have the same aim, which is that the sporting decisions are taken to reach the team’s goals, as the interest of the team always comes before all else. Decisions we have taken in the past have always been reached in this spirit.”

One of the tasks during last week’s MotoGP test in Malaysia was to sample the new tires supplied by Bridgestone ahead of the 2014 season. Antonio Jimenez, crew chief to GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Alvaro Bautista, explains the challenge.

Bautista may have ended proceedings 11th on the timesheet, but rapid lap times were not everything as numerous experiments went on behind the scenes.

The metropolitan streets are deserted and dimly lit in the wee hours of the morning. Simon Pagenaud unlocks a warehouse door and opens an envelope that contains his classified mission: evaluate the 2015 Acura TLX prototype.

“It’s real James Bond stuff,” Pagenaud said of his role in a TV commercial he filmed in Los Angeles late last year.